


I Know the Pieces Fit

by elmathelas



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angels, Blasphemy, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 21:02:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elmathelas/pseuds/elmathelas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>William Boyd and Dominic Monaghan are reunited after many years apart, and they're both suffering from the same problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know the Pieces Fit

**Author's Note:**

> In their conversations Billy and Dom quote both the film Wings of Desire and Nietzsche's "The Madman." (Quotes are acknowledged but not attributed within the text.)

William Boyd sat on the bench in the bus shelter, watching the traffic go by. Though it was seven o clock in the beginning of October, a perfectly normal time for the sun to be down in the northern hemisphere, the nip in the air and the continuous flow of traffic lent the scene the air of an early evening more appropriate to November, a few days before snow. Across the street a metro bus ground to a halt, the stream of cars edging around it as it sank slightly towards the curb, the hissing of the hydraulics audible even where he sat. In the few seconds that it took for the bus to discharge its passengers and pick up new ones, and to right itself squarely on its wheels, the traffic had died down, a rare pause as the entire block fell nearly silent save for the idling of the engine. The orange sodium vapor light over the bus shelter flickered on, and William thought of a certain kind of scene that sometimes played a pivotal role in films. They were American films, usually. A bus or train was involved. One character would be stationary, watching the other side of the road or track or staring into space or, in a variation on the theme, running after the self-same vehicle. That approach worked better on trains. When the vehicle in question pulled away the landscape would miraculously be free of any kind of motion other than the two main characters looking at each other across the space where the bus had been, the one surprised to see that the other had deboarded, or never boarded, or simply seemed to have appeared.

It was for that reason, then, that he chuckled softly when the bus pulled away, revealing, as a dark cloud of exhaust swirled away, Dominic Monaghan. Dom looked once up and down the street, empty, of course, then walked across to where William was sitting. He strode casually, with a cadence to his step that might have been at ease in some other century but not now, stepping up on to the curb at the precise moment that a car sped by, its headlights blazing halogen blue but apparently without the driver knowing that there had been a person crossing the road.

When Dom sat it was close enough to William that they could sense each other’s body heat, but despite that move on Dominic’s part, it was William who spoke first.

“It’s been a long time, Dominic.”

The other man nodded. “One might even say eons.”

“One might, if you were being hyperbolic.”

“Would I be?” Dominic turned and smiled at him, their faces, their mouths uncommonly close, but there was no one nearby to see.

“Perhaps not.” William stood, as much to get away from Dominic’s intense gaze as to be able to look down at him, for however brief a time. In all the years that he’d known him, Dominic had never let him forget who was taller by an inch. “Do you have somewhere you need to be?”

“Always.” Dominic’s smile had changed from a wide grin to the close-mouthed smirk that seemed so at home on his features. “And you?”

“I was going home,” William said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. He had no intention of traveling by bus, so why he was sitting on the bus bench was somewhat misleading.

“Which bus are you waiting for?”

“None of them, actually.” When he turned to look, Dominic standing too. “Which you knew, of course.”

“Of course. Do you still have that same car?”

“As if you had to ask.” William turned away. “Let’s go.”

His car, a convertible Saab 900, was just around the corner, the top looking very much the worse for wear. Dominic let himself in to the passenger side, remembering to give the door an extra hard slam.

“What did you do today?” he asked as William buckled his seat belt.

“I took the train. And at my stop, instead of yelling out Strassbourg, the conductor yelled Tierra del Fuego. That was funny.”

Dominic stared at him for a moment, placing the quote. “Arse.”

William laughed softly, the idea that maybe so many years apart might just fade into the background coming to him slowly, and he found the thought most welcome.

“Do you really want to know, just what I’ve been doing today?”

“Seems a good place to start.” Dominic returned the stare that clearly meant he should buckle his seatbelt, and left it undone anyway.

“Fine.” William started the car, glanced in the mirror, and pulled out on to the empty street. When they stopped at the corner, waiting for a long line of traffic, he spoke. “A transient man asked me for a dollar. I gave him twelve.”

“How like you.”

“He used it to buy a liter of vodka, which he then drank, and died soon afterwards.”

Dominic raised his eyebrows. “And all before three in the afternoon, I suppose.”

“He didn’t die until just a few moments ago.” William saw a break in the traffic approaching and inched past the stop line, merging smoothly.

“So, you killed him.” Dominic reached down beside the seat for the lever, tilting the seat back so he could lean back and look at the street lamps that passed by.

“Indirectly, of course,” William pointed out.

“Immaterial, as everything we do is indirect.”

“True.” They were silent as William drove across a bridge and into a neighborhood of quieter streets, tall brownstone buildings and cramped but bright gardens at the edges of the sidewalks. “The thing I didn’t mention was that his plan for the day was not to drink a liter of vodka and die.”

“Very few people have that on their to-do list,” Dominic remarked.

“And some do. But his plan for the day, more than a plan, his destiny for the day, the thing that drove him, was murder.”

“How unusual.”

“Not at all.” William slowed as he drove down a certain street, parallel parking the car into a space that was only just large enough. “Not when you consider the sheer amount of killing that goes on, on a daily basis.”

“Not usually by transients, not here,” Dominic insisted.

“True, they’re more often killed. But he was special. He had a compulsion. Voices.” He turned off the car but remained sitting, sinking back into the upholstery.

“Could you hear them?” Dominic’s eyes caught the light from a passing car, and seemed to glow blue for a moment in the glare from the halogen, even though William remembered very well that his irises were gray.

“Only when I listened very hard.”

“So they weren’t real, then.”

“No. But they were real enough to him.” He unbuckled his seat belt and listened to the hiss of the fabric being drawn back when he let go. “And I could not sway him.”

“So you killed him.”

“Yes.”

Dominic smirked. “How Utilitarian of you.”

“Just trying to catch up to where you’ve been all these years,” William said, his voice lighter than it had been since they’d met in the city. He waited for a passing car to go by, then opened his door.

They both had to slam their doors shut twice to get them to catch, not that it mattered, really, since the top of the car was still down.

“I can’t believe this thing is still running,” Dominic said as he tugged on the handle, making sure the door was really closed.

“And why not?” William patted the edge of the door firmly, almost affectionately.

“Why not? It looks like it’s being held together by spit and,” he paused.

“Go ahead, say it.” It was William’s turn to grin at Dominic, to challenge him.

“You know what I mean.” He thumped his hand against the door, a little harder than William had, and began walking up the path to the front door.

“What did you do today?” William asked as he unlocked the door, the jingle of the keys obscuring his words only slightly.

“Wondered,” Dominic said as he walked into William’s house. “I did a lot of wondering.”

“How productive of you.” William took his jacket off and hung it on a hook just beside the front door, then held his hand out to his guest. Dominic handed over both an overcoat and the long scarf he’d been wearing, and William made sure that the scarf was arranged along the top of the coat’s collar before he hung them both up.

“I was on a bus for a whole day and night, what else was I supposed to do?”

William shrugged as he let his fingers linger on the light switch. Sometimes things were nicer in the dark. “Buses are teeming cisterns of humanity,” he pointed out. “Could have spent your time comforting the afflicted. Afflicting the comfortable, things like that.”

“Could have done,” Dominic agreed, that cadence to his voice distinctly British. Americans didn’t end sentences on a past tense modal auxiliary. For a moment he looked startled by his own utterance. “Why are we here, do you think?”

William threw on the light. If Dominic was going to be asking the hard questions, light was going to be needed.

“In America, I mean,” Dominic said, “before you get to being all smartarsed about What It’s All About.”

William gave a short laugh as he looked in the refrigerator. “You knew then?” He pushed a dried out lemon aside on the shelf, as if there might be something very tasty hidden behind it. Of course there was not.

“Some things don’t change.” Dominic stood up and peered over William’s shoulder, leaving a barely perceptible stripe of warmth down one side of his back. “Including the state of your larder.”

“It was my shopping day today,” William said sadly, “I was distracted.” He turned over a wedge of brie in his hand, then set it back on the shelf, leaking into its plastic wrap. There might still come a time when he’d eat it, he reasoned.

“We should go now,” Dominic said, standing up, taking away that warm place as he stepped away. “Let’s go. I love American grocery stores. Piles of fruit, produce everywhere. It’s almost obscene.” He was bouncing on the balls of his feet when William turned around.

“I don’t feel like going far,” he said, “I’d just go to the bodega down the street.”

“Ooh, a bodega,” Dominic said, “haven’t been to one of those for a while. They’ve got that good hot chocolate, the kind with the chilies in? And a cat, I bet. Bodegas always have a cat hanging around. El gato.”

William closed the distance between them with one step and rested the fingertips of both hands against Dominic’s elbows. Even as he was holding still there was something about him that seemed to thrum, like the throat of a purring cat, a constant current and a pull as if he was constantly moving up, up, up. “Be still, Dom,” he said quietly, the diminutive of Dominic’s name slipping from his lips.

Dom’s reaction was immediate, a half step forward, his arms opening then closing tight behind William’s back as he pulled him close. “Billy,” he said, relief evident in his voice, so transparent, so evident that it was relief at something not forgotten.

The only place Billy felt that was in his chest, as his heart managed to place two beats where only one should have been, a wave of dizziness accompanying it, and he used that as an excuse to lean on to Dom.

“We should get Chinese,” Dom said, his chin digging in to the top of Billy’s head. “American Chinese. I want something sweet and greasy.”

“Tell me why you’re here,” Billy said, never expecting an answer.

“Get me some orange chicken, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Billy reached for the counter and groped for the phone, still in the circle of Dom’s arms. He dialed the buttons with his thumb, spoke with his chin poking into Dom’s shoulder, unwilling, now that he had it, to give up the feeling of Dom so near him for even a moment.

 

Billy turned his fortune cookie over in his fingers, the cellophane around it crinkling as he decided to set it aside, for now, not to look until he was sure he could withstand the disappointment of it being something utterly banal. It wasn’t often that something like a little slip of paper would speak to him, but it did often enough for the times that it didn’t to be a colossal let down. Across the room Dom chased the last bit of rice soaked in orange sauce around the bottom of the shiny metal take-out tray. Once he captured it, setting the chopsticks and the tray on the coffee table, Billy figured that he was fair game.

“Why are you here?”

Dom looked up, swallowed his mouthful of rice, and leaned back on the couch, folding his hands primly in his lap. “I am here,” he said slowly, looking straight at Billy, “for several purposes. To remind people that they are essentially good. To ease the ways of knowing between unhappy people. To help people remember their pasts, and give them hope for the future.”

He sat so still then that he might have been a portrait—a nicely dressed young man sitting in a warm circle of lamplight, leaning against the afghan thrown over a yellow and green plaid velour couch with wooden accents on the arms. Billy had thought, over the years, of getting a new couch, but there had never been a need. He reached for his fortune cookie and squeezed the little pouch in his hand, waiting for the satisfying snap of the seam bursting before he spoke.

“You owe me twelve dollars.” He let the cookie fall into his palm and left it there, light, but heavy with possibility too. He thought of the other messages he’d received in his lifetime, and almost laughed with a sound that would have been close to weeping to think that he was conscientiously delaying opening a fortune cookie for the pre-printed slip inside.

“Why do I owe you twelve dollars?” Dom leaned forward, the lamp light catching his teeth as he smiled.

“You said you’d tell me why you were here if I got you some orange chicken,” Billy said, “and you’re bullshitting me.”

“I am not,” Dom said, reaching into the bag to retrieve his own fortune cookie. “I told you precisely why I was here.”

“You told me why you were put here,” Billy nearly snapped, “not why you’re here, here.”

“Here, here?” Dom echoed, ripping along the edge of the cellophane packet quietly.

“Here,” Billy said, losing patience, “my home. This city. America.”

“Oh, America, that one I can answer easily,” Dom said. “This is where it’s at, isn’t it? The last great struggles of humanity, creation and destruction, all rolled into one messy ball. Hell’s empty the devils are all here, and all that.”

Billy leaned his head back on his couch, a slightly more sedate brown corduroy, and sighed. “That’s Shakespeare, you twit, he couldn’t have been talking about America. Not this America, anyway.”

“Sure he could have, he was probably prescient.” Dom was silent until Billy looked up again. “Trade with me,” he said, holding up his cookie, “I think you have mine.”

Billy sat up and lobbed it at Dom who caught it without blinking, then sent his across the room in a gentle arc. Billy reached out his hand and caught it, only crushing one corner a little bit. He broke the cookie apart, held the little slip of paper while he chewed and swallowed, then looked.

An old friend will soon give you some good advice.

He frowned, folded it in half, and tucked it into the front pocket of his trousers.

“Every cloud has a silver lining,” Dom read, “now, that, I can personally attest to, is not even remotely true.”

“I don’t think it’s meant to be taken literally,” Billy said.

“What’s yours say?”

“I’m not telling,” Billy said, surprised at the peevish sound of his own voice. “I’m superstitious like that.”

“There’s no superstitions regarding fortune cookies,” Dom said, crunching on his own. “You just don’t want to say.”

“My prerogative,” Billy said, “and you still haven’t answered my question. For that, if nothing else, I should be able to withhold my fortune.”

“Fair enough.”

They sat in silence as the light outside the house faded from deep blue to true darkness, the stripe of light from the streetlamp running down the middle of the room from the kitchen, but not illuminating either of their faces. It was not uncomfortable, Billy thought, but rather like being inside a large dark blanket, not smothered but cozied, the silence making time stutter, halt, then rush, until he had no sense at all of how long they’d sat there.

His pupils dilated in accordance with the laws of nature, he being in a dark room, but the stripe of light, too distant to influence his eye, kept him blind to Dom’s presence on the other couch. The room itself grew shapeless to his perception, the walls seeming now close, now distant. The idea of the vastness of the universe fluttered across his mind—he tried to grasp it, a fruitless bit of mental gymnastics, then tried to think of smaller things. A cluster of galaxies, the milky way, the solar system, the earth, the continent of North America. Like a child addressing an envelope he made the idea smaller and smaller until he was back to the room. In comparison to how far away he might have been, Dom seemed positively only an atom’s width away. Billy reached up his hand to test that idea, found himself focusing on the white back of his own hand, his sight restored.

“How about a light,” he said, reaching towards the lamp. The soft white light showed Dom looking vaguely startled, his eyes squinting as he adjusted.

“What do you do, in the evenings,” Dom asked.

Billy shrugged. “You’re looking at it.”

Dom gave him an odd look. “You sit around your parlor with the lights off?”

“No.” He sighed and shifted. “No, I just meant, nothing much. Nothing in particular.” He gave Dom a sharp look. “I thought you might be thinking of something specific.”

“Such as?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“Who do you share your company with?” Dom crossed one ankle over his knee and rested his hands there.

“I move in and out of crowded rooms, just like we all do. Particularly though the old man across the way plays a mean game of backgammon.”

“That’s hardly fair, considering that you’ve had centuries to perfect your game.”

Billy smiled. “He also has excellent Scotch. I let that take the edge off.”

“Quite fair of you.”

“I’ve always been fair.” Billy stood and closed the curtains, turned on some more lamps to make the space seem more even. “What about you?”

“Coming and going from crowded rooms is all I ever seem to do,” Dom said, “but I have no particular pastime in the manner of backgammon.” He seemed almost sad about it. “You were always better than me at filling the time in a reasonable way.”

Billy was wandering around the apartment, picking up the leavings from their meal. “What do you mean?”

“I thought you’d be spending your time away from the world in, I don’t know, contemplation or meditation.”

“I believe the phrase you’re looking for is prayer and meditation.” He turned away as he said it, the crease between his brows deepening as he spoke.

“That’s it, isn’t it,” and Dom’s voice was suddenly right at his back. If he stood up straight, his shoulders would bump into Dom’s chest. “Tell me, Billy.”

“You tell me.”

Billy stood up, let his back hit Dom’s chest, held still while Dom put an arm around him, holding him up with one arm crossed over his chest.

“Tell me, Billy,” Dom said, voice warm at his ear, chin stubble scratching against his neck. “Tell me.”

“I don’t pray anymore,” Billy said, closing his eyes as he spoke, “because it’s like dropping a stone into a well. But the splash never comes.”

The arm over his chest tightened. “In other words, there’s nothing there.”

Billy broke free then, turned around. “How do we know that it’s just not hit yet? How do we know there’s nothing there?”

Dom reached out and caught Billy’s face in his hands, his fingertips just brushing the edges of Billy’s jaw. “I’ve been waiting years,” he said, “when it used to be instantly, before I’d stopped talking.”

“Before I started, sometimes,” Billy said.

“And words.” Dom stepped closer. “Real words.”

“The world has changed,” Billy whispered, his voice diminished by how close Dom was standing.

“Not just the world,” Dom said, “but everything.” When he spoke Billy faintly caught the scent of red peppers.

“But not gone,” Billy said, his voice stronger. “Because if it’s all gone, we’d be gone.”

Dom shook his head, stepped back, taking his hands away from Billy’s face. “I don’t think so.”

“Then how would we know, if it’s all gone?” Billy asked, his face feeling cold in the absence of Dom’s touch, as if in such a short time it had become used to his presence.

“This.” Dom reached out his entire arm’s length and pressed the heel of his hand to Billy’s chest. In that instant, Billy felt his own warmth reflected back at him from Dom’s touch. “This spark, this heat. When it’s gone, it’s all gone.”

“They’ve got it too,” Billy pointed out, held in place by Dom’s hand but managing somehow to gesture to the world outside their room.

“As well they should,” Dom said, “you know that. And when it’s gone from us and gone from all of them, then it’s over.”

He didn’t move, didn’t lift his hand. The lamps lit the room nearly as bright as daylight, but as the silence deepened they seemed dim, almost leaving the room in darkness, since they both had the memory of the sun to compare it to. A car drove by, a quiet hum of tires against tar, and Dom shifted, began to lift his hand as a sense of passing time came back to them. Billy lifted his hands, folded them over Dom’s hand, holding him in place for a moment longer.

“So. You think we continue on, for a while?”

“Like the light from the stars, maybe,” Dom said, pulling away.

“The light keeps traveling for years after there’s nothing left but a black hole,” Billy said, understanding.

“And we don’t know until years, lifetimes, later.”

“We know,” Billy corrected him. “Or we did.” A strange stillness settled over him, the warmth from Dom’s body reaching him through his clothes as they stayed there. “So you think that we’d continue on, like the light from the stars, even after the source was gone?”

“Indubitably,” Dom said, picking at his cuticles.

“There’s only one thing to do then.” Billy straightened his shoulders. He watched as Dom looked at him, silently. “Grab your coat. We’re going to the bodega.”

 

Outside, the night was like any other early evening in late fall in any city, anywhere. That was to say, really, that there were evil deeds being done behind closed doors, people crying bitterly, other people laughing, some people sleeping with their eyes closed, others with their eyes open. Children being fed at round tables, children eating out of metal trays in front of televisions, children eating at soup kitchens. Paint covering canvas, words seeping on to pages, poison seeping into the air and water and soil, money flowing like a dirty river among all the people, happy and sad connected either by the way the money passed over their hands or by the way it flowed just out of reach. Dom lifted his head high and breathed in the oxygen that lingered close to the trees, a little of everything that he knew was going on, had to be going on, flavoring the air that passed over his palette.

“Nice evening,” Billy said as he pushed his hands into his pockets.

“It is.” The lights on the bridge in the distance made a series of inverted, curving V-s, the light reaching them almost immediately though it would have taken them an hour to walk there. Each light was a thing touched by the hands of a man or woman, manufactured, packaged, shipped, placed and replaced. Dom felt dizzy by the ghosts of all the hands that had touched everything they walked past—the car doors, the paper wrappers, scraps of food in bins. Everything had been touched by human hands, even the trees that lined the sidewalks. The wind rustled through the leaves as if to say that there were some things that could be placed by the hands of men, but they would carry on fine without, thank you, and he turned his head to answer when Billy spoke again.

“What do you fancy?”

Dom thought for a moment—what an odd question. What did he fancy, indeed. A warm day, a soft day, warm socks, bare feet, fresh fruit, those strange cakes that came in cellophane with the white cream in the middle. The day of the dead, the endless optimism and waste of the space program, satellite radio, the first snow of every year, nail varnish, being naked. The answers to the question of what he fancied were endless. Had Billy asked him what do you love, that would have been a much shorter list.

Dom was brought back by Billy’s sharp glance. “In the way of spirits.”

Dom stumbled. “I’ve always liked the look of any kind of faerie, really, but I don’t think they’re indigenous to North America.”

“They have all kinds,” Billy continued, pretending, apparently, that Dom had not spoken, or perhaps he hadn’t. “I say that tonight, we get well and truly pissed.”

“Excellent plan.” The sidewalk and all that was around them came back into focus, then, righting itself. Just a common evening, a common city, a common night with his old friend. Nothing to worry about. No reason to try and imagine that he could peer through walls, or touch the people inside.

 

It was darker by the time they were walking home, but Dom felt that he could see more clearly. In the small grocery store there had indeed been a cat—Dom had tried to make her come to him so he could pet her while Billy chose the alcohol, talking all the while to the proprietor in Spanish, the vowels and rolled r’s caressing Dom’s ears while he tried to catch even a hint of what it was they spoke of. What would it be, he’d wondered, while he crouched near a stack of Goya beans. _Lovely weather we’re having. How is your daughter? She’s well, just back from her honeymoon. Beautiful, give her my love. Of course, of course. Your friend, he’s rather strange isn’t he? The strangest._ And laughter, familiar and comfortable. Clearly this was a place that Billy had been many times, and the realization had left Dom feeling even more out of place than before. Billy’s Spanish was touched in places by the hint of a Glaswegian burr, the trilling of the hard r more Caledonian than Catalonian in places, and it seemed to amuse the man who wrapped their bottles in paper bags, packing them carefully for the walk home.

“I didn’t realize you had it,” Dom said when they had turned the corner.

“Had what?”

“The gift of tongues.” Dom tried hard to keep the jealousy out of his voice—he could understand any language spoken, and many things that were not spoken, and he could touch and sway the minds of many people all over the world, but speaking a language other than English, in a store, like a man, discussing news and weather and what the best kind of beer was, it was always beyond him.

Billy rolled his eyes. “The gift of tongues is $49.95 American from Barnes and Noble, and comes in a box marked Berlitz.”

Dom hadn’t been paying attention in the bodega, not to anything other than the effortless way that Billy seemed to speak, so it wasn’t until Billy was mixing liquor and cut fruit in a pitcher on the counter that he knew what they were having.

"Sangria." Dom's lip curled.

"You don't like sangria?" Billy gave the pitcher a final stir, then set it on the table. In the yellow kitchen, the red liquid looked more lurid than one would have thought possible, fairly glowing in the white light from the overhead fixture.

"Something kind of macabre about it, isn't there?" His eyes followed Billy's fingers as the other man reached in between two slices of orange to pluck out a cherry.

"What, just because it's named after blood?" Billy popped the cherry into his mouth, then spoke around it. "I thought it would be appropriate for this time of the year."

Dom had no sooner thought of a sugar skull than Billy was standing there with one in his hand, holding it out to him. Dom took it in one hand, and his glass in the other, raising both hands in confusion as Billy offered a toast.

"Here's to the grateful dead."

They moved from the kitchen to the living room in short order, the pitcher continuing to reflect and absorb the light as it was surrounded by the lamps, sitting in the middle of the coffee table. Sangria table, Dom mentally corrected himself, giggling softly.

The noise seemed to startle Billy. "Why are we drinking?" he asked, the glass paused when it was already more than half way to his mouth.

"Because," Dom said, fighting the feeling that he didn't really know, himself, before he remembered, "we were concerned about the undeniable sensation that we are, as never before, alone in the universe."

"Mmmm." Billy leaned forward. "Very true." He poured himself another generous glass, draining the pitcher. "Terribly undignified. I say we switch to Scotch soon."

"You'll be switching to nothing, that drink is going to finish you," Dom declared, setting his feet on the sangria table now that there was no longer a full pitcher there to risk knocking over.

"So you say," Billy said, glaring at him over the rim. "Let's review."

"Let's review what a lightweight you are?"

"Just because I'm drinking faster than you."

"Glutton."

"Slut."

Dom shrugged his shoulders. "You get no argument there, my friend," he said, grinning as he leaned back. "Now, what was it that you really wanted to review?"

"Why we know there's nothing there anymore." Billy slumped against the worn upholstery, looking sad.

"I never said I knew," Dom insisted, leaning forward. "I just said it felt like that."

"Since when have your feelings ever been wrong?"

Dom leaned back, lax posture almost a mirror image of Billy. "Rarely, at best," he admitted.

“Let’s drink to that,” Billy said, lifting his cup, fingers denting it in a way that looked dangerous.

“Remind me again what we’re drinking to.” Dominic raised the red plastic cup to his lips and contemplated the other vessels he’d drunk out of in his time on earth, Austrian crystal, silver and gold, hand wrought earthenware, and now this ephemeral thing, meant to be tossed away after an evening, or just part of an evening.

“You’re the one who brought it up.” William drained his cup and set it down hard on the coffee table, frowning when it cracked.

“God is dead,” Dom said, trying out the way the words felt on his tongue, like a child whispering curses behind the shed, daring his parents to come find him out.

Billy stood then and walked towards him, the broken cup he’d left behind him oozing red on to the table.

“The tremendous event is still on its way,” he said softly, quoting from memory, the distance between them seeming to expand so that he was able to keep walking, as if he was not in the room at all but rather somehow visible from a much greater distance. “It has not yet reached the ears of men.” And then he was standing directly in front of Dom, his shins nearly touching his knees, heat radiating from him enough to warm Dom’s face. “Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done,” he reached out and cupped his hand against Dom’s jaw, “before they can be seen and heard.”

“Billy,” Dom whispered, but Billy only leaned closer, lowering his voice but not to a whisper, the baritone of it resonating in Dom’s ears.

“This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars.” He held still, leaning forward, an inch from Dom’s face.

“And yet they have done it themselves,” Dom finished for him, simply because there was nothing else to do, nothing else to say that would move the moment forward.

He didn’t so much kiss Billy as flick his tongue out for a taste, only to wind up with Billy’s mouth wrapped around his tongue. Billy sucked, Dom leaned forward, Billy over corrected and lost his balance, one hand grasping the back of Dom’s head, the other seeking something to hold. He found Dom’s hand reaching for him even as their mouths never parted, pulling him down. He moved his feet so his legs were further apart, and sank down, sitting on Dom’s thighs and leaning forward, eyes closed, drunkenly sinking in to Dom’s space.

“Haven’t done that for a while,” Billy said, orange scented breath ghosting across Dom’s face.

“One might say eons.”

“One might.” Billy leaned on him heavily. “Should I bother counting the years for you?” He slipped one hand, warm and flat, under Dom’s shirt to rest flush against his skin.

“No,” Dom said, his lips already beginning to brush against Billy’s mouth, “don’t start counting. We’ll be here all night.”

Billy smiled at that, his mouth curving against Dom’s. It was a dangerous thing to do, he knew, to give in to being drunk, give in to being warm and close. It was dangerous to give in to impulse and desire, to tread too close to the edge of the map, the part that didn’t describe or plot, simply stated here be dragons.

Billy had seen dragons though, long ago but large and bright enough to remember, and Dom was nothing like them. Each new swipe of his tongue inside Dom’s mouth gave his stomach the same kind of pleasant flutter, a tingle and warmth that spelled danger, but without the hair burning off his arms and the stench of sulfur in the air. The warmth and happiness—that was it, happiness, joy, really, a liquid spreading sensation that seemed to be a kissing cousin to fear—bubbled up so high he had to laugh softly, pulling his mouth away from Dom’s, feeling the cool air against his lips immediately as he did.

“Something wrong?” Dom’s voice was a low vibration beneath Billy’s hand, where he’d laid his palm flat to keep himself upright.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Billy said, trying to decide if he should explain the excitement and joy that felt so akin to pleasant fear, the memory of dragons, but was surprised by his own next words. “The room just feels small.” He leaned back, testing that statement. “Let’s go up to the roof.”

Dom’s smile was slow enough to make him wonder if he’d said something wrong, but when it did come it was guileless, open and full of a simple anticipation.

“Are we breaking in?”

“You mean out?” Billy remained on Dom’s knees. “No, there’s a staircase. But we’ll be alone.”

“Good.” Dom stood at almost the same moment Billy did, nearly knocking him over but instead planting a brief but wet kiss against his lips, one that tasted of oranges and red wine. As Billy turned to lead the way he saw Dom reach for the skull he’d left on the coffee table, cradling it in his hand as if it were a hollow egg shell. Billy grabbed the sack from the bodega as they walked by the table, leading the way down into the basement of the townhouses to get to the steep narrow stairs that went to the roof.

 

After the confinement of the stairs the open air of the roof was a relief, and Dom breathed deeply as he stepped on to the tarpaper surface. To the east where the sky was darkest the bridge glowed even brighter than before, the lanes of traffic two double lines of red and white. Billy stood behind him, so close that when he took a deep breath his chest bumped gently into Dom’s side.

“There are people in each of those cars,” Dom said softly, looking towards the bridge.

“Likely one person in each car, really,” Billy said with a touch of amusement in his voice. “There are people there, too,” he said, lifting his arm to point forward and up. Dom followed the line of his hand, nearly embraced as he leaned to look at the small blinking lights that were moving across the sky, more visible in the city than any stars.

Dom rubbed his thumb over the sugar skull, feeling the grains flaking off under his moist skin. “Add to that the people buried below us, and we’re literally surrounded.”

“By bodies, at least,” Billy said, lowering his arm. “I’m feeling a bit like them, at the moment.”

“I’m feeling more than a bit like them lately,” Dom said, “but I figure, that might be as it’s supposed to be, if it is indeed the end of the world.” He watched Billy sit on the tar paper, leaning against a vent, and sat in front of him, legs folding as he sat.

“I never said it was the end of the world,” Billy said, reaching into the paper bag. “Only that the world was changing.”

“Not for the better,” Dom said, accepting the beer that Billy handed to him, even though he wasn’t really thirsty and the buzz he had from the sangria would likely have held him for a few more minutes at least.

“We never think it’s for the better, but it hasn’t ended yet,” Billy pointed out, throwing the cap off to the side and lifting the bottle. “Cheers.”

“Slainte,” Dom said, then drank deeply, finding that he was thirsty after all. “But quiet,” he said, “you have to agree that it’s quiet.”

“The world has never been less quiet, and the minds of men are all unquiet minds,” Billy said, leaning against Dom’s side. “But if you mean, is it quiet in that there are no celestial voices? Then yes, it seems quiet to me as well.”

“You know that’s what I meant.”

Billy shrugged. “Aye.” The syllable fell between them like a leaf on the slight breeze.

The air was cool against Dom’s face, but the place where Billy leaned against him was warm, and growing warmer, the stripe of heat beginning to spread through his entire body, surrounding his heart and spreading from there.

Below them the sides of the buildings were painted briefly with the flashing lights of an ambulance, the wail of the siren reaching their ears a second later.

“I’m too drunk to do anything,” Billy said, “and even if I wasn’t,” he let his voice trail off.

“I’m tired too.” Dom shifted so they were no longer side to side, but back to front, his arms slung over Billy’s shoulders.

“It’s not that,” Billy said, letting the side of his face rest against Dom’s chest. “There are just too many of them. Too few of us.”

“Were there more of us once?” Billy’s voice was soft.

“I don’t remember.” Dom shifted, trying to get closer to Billy, and felt something give way beneath the heel of his free hand—the sugar skull.

“It broke,” he said, holding up a piece of the curving forehead.

“Give me some.” Billy opened his mouth and Dom let the entire curved piece of sugar rest on his tongue, watching it melt a little before Billy closed his mouth, crushing it against his pallet. Dom reached for the skull, wanting something sweet himself, such an odd feeling, that want, and when he couldn’t find it the frustration of not having what he wanted bubbled up in his chest, heavy and real, and he wondered if that was what humans felt like all the time.

He must have made some small noise, as Billy looked up at him then, tilting his own head, and Dom saw a way to get at that taste and something else he’d been wanting besides, and covered Billy’s mouth with his own.

 

Billy smiled when Dom’s mouth touched his, a subtle quirking of his lips that went unnoticed as Dom’s tongue sought entrance to his mouth. He’d been letting the solid sugar melt on his tongue, and the syrupy layer there was hot from the reaction of the sugar breaking apart, moreso when Dom swirled the tip of his tongue through it, stealing away the last of the solid sugar, leaning back to crunch it between his teeth with a triumphant look on his face.

Billy inched away from Dom so they were sitting side by side again, then leaned forward, close enough that he could smell the sweetness on Dom’s breath.

“Want to do something wicked, Dom?” When he grinned he could feel how many teeth he was showing, could feel his face moving in a way that it hadn’t for years, since he hadn’t looked at anyone hungrily in years, indeed, hadn’t been hungry in years either.

“You think anyone will notice?” The mingled fear and hope in Dom’s voice was almost enough to stop him, but not quite.

“I don’t care,” he said, and that was new too, the not caring. It blossomed hotly in his chest as he closed his teeth gently around Dom’s lower lip, and he knew why they called that feeling Devil may care.

He managed to keep his hands fisted into Dom’s shirt as they practically tumbled down the stairs back to his flat, his mouth hardly ever leaving Dom’s skin. The want was human in nature, yes, but the way they moved from stair to stair without breaking their necks was not.

Once at the door Billy pushed Dom inside with his body, chest to chest, hip to hip, moving him where he’d likely have gone willingly, but the fact that he could move him at all made the contact seem more immediate, more real.

Dom pushed back, only to make the contact closer, the heat that was seeping through their clothes heating him until he felt almost too warm, sweat dampening the fine hair at the sides of his face and the back of his neck. He had opened his arms to let Billy embrace him; now he felt like he was opening a door in his chest, his whole being open wide.

Billy fell forward when the back of Dom's knees hit the couch, pushing him down to a sitting position, gasping as their mouths separated briefly. Dom was in front of him, solid and warm beneath his mouth and hands, but he was all around him too, flowing around him like a river, pulling him under, moving them both forward.

"This can't be wicked," Billy said, stroking his thumb along the edge of Dom's jaw, tracing the edge of his face.

"We can make it wicked," Dom said, leaning forward, grazing his forehead against Billy's cheek, the light touch suggesting where his horns would be, if he had them.

Billy laughed softly at the image, knew that Dom had caught it straight out of his mind, and realized that he was open too, bleeding out into the room, surrounding Dom even as Dom surrounded him so that there was no loss, no drain from what he was giving.

"Let it be what it is," Billy said, opening his mouth as they kissed again, the twining of their tongues becoming all that he knew, the focus of his mind, as if he had shrunk to something smaller than a dust mote, cradled within the moist heat of their mouths. Yet his hands were still moving, pushing at Dom's clothes, pushing them up to reveal the smooth skin of Dom's back, his palms sliding up, cloth bunching over his forearms.

Dom broke away from him as their arms were stymied by their clothes, leaned back and struggled free from his shirt and jumper. Billy heard buttons hitting the hardwood floor, either his or Dom's he didn't know, and laughed as he thought that it wouldn't matter by the time they found them, surely, had only the briefest moment to wonder what he'd meant by his own thought when Dom caught him in a new kind of embrace, skin to skin, slender arms twining around his back, pressing their chests together. Billy took a deep breath, felt their bodies press even more closely together at that, and shuddered.

"This is not the place for this," he said, leaning back.

Dom only held on tighter, was only persuaded when Billy stood up, holding out his hands. "Come with me," Billy said, "if you want to."

Dom jumped up, none of the hesitation that Billy had feared evident in his bearing. The entire way up the stairs Dom was touching him, a hand flat on his back, another tucked into the waistband of his trousers. Once in the room Billy shrugged him off only so he could undo his belt, letting it fall to the floor as he began undoing his trousers.

"I look foolish," he said, shying away as Dom stared at him pushing the trousers over the curve of his arse. Dom merely shook his head, began to undress too, so that for one moment they appeared to be simply two men, each taking their trousers off one leg at a time.

After the strange performance of removing his clothes, Billy walked to his bed, feeling all the more exposed to Dom's eyes. He hadn't taken two steps, though, before he was once again caught up in that feeling of being surrounded, carried along by Dom's energy even as he was so willingly giving his away. Dom caught up to him in one long stride, grasping him by the hip, thumb settling into the curve of skin just over the bone.

"Do you remember that kilt you had?" Dom asked.

"Of course," Billy said, leaning back against Dom's chest as he was pulled near, Dom's erection pressing firmly against his lower back.

"Made things a sight easier." Dom kissed the curve of Billy's ear after he spoke, and Billy shivered, both at that and the memory that suddenly came back, the realization that truly, this was not the first time they'd found themselves in such circumstances. "We should go to Scotland."

"Yes," Billy said, turning in Dom's arms so they were face to face again, eyes very nearly lining up.

"Tomorrow," Dom said, "we should go tomorrow." His words were slurred as he tried to kiss and speak at the same time, but Billy heard that, even understood the rest when Dom said "we should go everywhere tomorrow."

"We could," Billy said, though it was with a sudden pang of sadness that he said the words. He pushed it aside as he would have bodily pushed an offending object, out of his sight. Instead of looking too closely at it, he cupped his hands around the top of Dom's arse and pulled him, walking backwards, to the bed.

The sheets were cool and smooth against his overheated skin, soothing even as the slide of Dom's skin against his excited him, comforting even as the insistent pressure of Dom's erection against his hip drove him to a feeling that was like a pleasant madness.

It was their mouths again, though, that received the most attention, even as his own erection throbbed between them, ineffectually demanding some attention. There was too much pleasure to be had yet in the more innocent territory of lips and tongue to move on to other things. Billy wondered, as he turned towards Dom, if they were intentionally prolonging the inevitable, but pushed that aside too.

Dom had no such thought of the future, immediate or otherwise, lost only in the warm wet space that was Billy's mouth, the frame of teeth and the soft insides of his cheeks all that he wanted or needed to know for the moment.

Satiety begat hunger, though, and as he took his mouth away, breathing in the cooler air of the room, he wondered what other tastes there were to discover on Billy's body. A hand on each shoulder, he gently convinced Billy to lie on his back, then straddled his waist, giving only the briefest of caresses to Billy's hard cock, noting with pleasure how Billy twisted and moaned at that.

Dom didn't give him a chance to ask for more, but leaned forward and applied his tongue to the side of Billy's neck, licking a firm line along the thick tendon there, using his knees on either side of Billy's hips to keep him still.

Billy could hear the sounds falling from his own lips, high pitched and breathy, like the voice of a bird, stuttering sounds as Dom painted one broad stripe after another along the sensitive skin of his neck, craning up to capture his ear lobe between his teeth, licking that sensitive skin before moving on.

Dom didn't linger on Billy's neck, but moved down, tasting the triangle where his neck met his shoulders, nipping at the skin of the shoulder itself, sliding down as he bent his head to lavish attention on his nipples, first licking, then biting as they formed stiff peaks. Billy writhed underneath Dom's mouth, both desiring the hot, sharp pleasure of teeth against his skin never to end, and practically begging for something else, something more.

Dom could make no sense of the sounds coming from Billy's mouth, could only gently hold his body so he didn't entirely slide away. Between Billy's nipples his chest had a slight furrow in it, a place where the skin was closer to the bone, and he ran his tongue down that, tasting the salt that had built up there, heady and different from the taste of the thin skin over his nipples or the warmer skin of his neck. Dom moved down, trying to taste everything, every texture, even the places on Billy's chest and stomach that were covered lightly in hair. The bands of muscle under the softer skin to either side of his navel seemed especially sensitive, good to bite with a wide open mouth, and each time he did Dom could feel the sharp intake of breath accompanied by the swift movement of the muscles, closer to Billy's spine, tightening instead of expanding, a mark of fear. Dom lapped and kissed his skin reassuringly, thought of the animals of the world and what it meant when they allowed their bellies to be exposed, and stroked his hand down the unprotected part of Billy's side, his touch almost reverent.

When he turned his head he could see the head of Billy's cock, red and wet, still nestled within the ridge of skin around it. Dom longed to use his lips to ease it free, but delayed that moment, using his tongue to lap up the small circle of fluid that had already leaked on to Billy's stomach, the side of his face brushing up against Billy's cock as he did. Dom glanced up, looking for permission, and found only the sight of his closed eyes, mouth open and glistening from where he'd licked his lips only moments before. Dom kept looking up, straining to see as he pressed a kiss to the head of Billy's cock, lips sliding against the moist skin, drawing him out. Billy squeezed his eyes tighter shut but reached for Dom, a hand resting gently on the back of his head.

Dom opened his mouth and leaned forward, letting the scent and taste and feel of Billy fill his mouth, soft skin slipping against a harder core. He pushed back against Billy's hand, then leaned forward, trying to tell him that it was alright to push him, alright to take what he wanted, but Billy remained gentle in his touch, barely pressing his fingers through Dom's hair.

Billy curled his fingers in Dom's hair, willing himself not to push, not to gag him by pressing in too quickly. Each time Dom traced the underside of his cock, pressing the point of his tongue into the groove there, Billy felt it as an echo through his entire body, a shudder so deep it never reached the outside. It was a wave, a sensation that lifted him and lowered him gently, taking him under and returning him to the surface by degrees, only just enough that he could keep breathing.

When Dom took his mouth away, Billy opened his eyes, the sight of his own room coming as a surprise after that time of being so firmly inside his own body and mind.

"Stand up."

He barely comprehended the words as being words, much less their meaning, only stared down at where Dom was fairly crouched over him.

"Billy." Dom was stroking his belly. "Stand up."

Billy arched his back, pressed down on the mattress with his feet and hands, and stood, leaning his hands on the high back of the headboard.

"Good," Dom murmured, kneeling in front of him, hands reaching up behind his thighs to rest against the curve of his arse, fingers digging into his flesh. "This is good."

Billy didn't have a chance to ask why it was good when Dom showed him, tilting his head back and leaning forward all in one moment, taking Billy's cock deep within his mouth, his throat, even, until Billy knew nothing except what was surrounding him, warm and close, slithering tongue and the soft sides of Dom's cheeks touching him when he pulled back minutely. His knuckles grew white as he held himself up on the curved headboard, his hips angling forward as Dom accepted every motion he made, every tilt and thrust. Dom's fingers moved from the back of his legs to the tender skin over his hip bones, one hand slipping down to cup his balls, fingers pressing gently but firmly as he rolled them in his hand.

Billy grew quiet as he got closer to coming. He remembered what it was like, and knew, more than anyone in the many buildings around them, why it was called a little death. Everything in his mind was sure to fade away to nothing, anything he might have hoped to keep hidden would be shown, his soul laid bare and visible for one moment, for anyone who might know how to look. He knew it as a heat that grew in the pit of his stomach, spreading, seeping down the back of his thighs, warming his chest, a strange lightheadedness, a tingle that spread over his every inch of skin from his fingertips to his face-- and even all that was nothing to the event itself, and even as he longed to fall head first into the sensation that was more than feeling he held himself back.

But Dom coaxed it out of him, brought him through it, tongue spiraling and lapping even as he sucked until his cheeks nearly touched, even as he drew back to let Billy come against his tongue instead of in his throat.

Dom knew Billy was nearing the end, kept going even though he felt like the walls were closing in around him, like there was no space between him and the bedroom window, as if the part of the bed he knelt on had become a very small island in the middle of a great space, as if he were trapped. He squeezed his eyes shut and listened to Billy’s breath, listened to it quicken and pause, tried to gage when it would happen, when he would have to carry Billy through it, because he remembered too, now.

When Billy came he let go of the headboard, Dom’s hands immediately grasping him by the hips, hard, holding him as he reached blindly for Dom’s head, any part of him he could touch, reaching through the darkness behind his closed eyes as his voice filled the room, one long tremolo note that ended before his orgasm did. He sank to the bed, slipping from Dom’s mouth, reaching for him and finding his arms as he became aware that there was something different behind him than the cool smooth wood of the headboard, something other than the sheets and pillows.

When Dom spoke, it was in a panic.

“Billy, I can’t see.”

Billy felt the fear in his words so deeply that he dared not open his own eyes, at first, instead reaching until he could touch Dom’s face. When he did his hand brushed over something familiar, and he opened his eyes.

“Dom, it’s alright.” But Dom remained still in the circle of Billy’s arms, and surrounded by wings. There were four of them—the two that stood up and draped forward from his own back, and the two from Billy’s back that had tilted forward to meet them, effectually covering Dom in a cavern of black feathers. Billy concentrated, remembered how they worked, and twitched the right muscle, and they folded back with a loud swishing noise, knocking over a lamp in the process.

Dom looked up at the crash, his face still partially obscured by his own wings.

“Did this happen last time?” he asked softly, fanning them back and folding them down so they made a more slender profile against his shoulders.

“Something like it, I think,” Billy said, reaching back to trace over the place where they emerged, the most sensitive and odd junction of flesh, smooth skin giving way to feathers, a small place that underneath was hard muscle and bone.

“This doesn’t bode well, does it?” Dom’s face, which always looked younger, looked especially young now.

“For you and I? You know it doesn’t. But as for the world ending,” Billy paused. “If the world really were ending, I doubt anyone would bother with us.”

Dom nodded, still sad, and looked down as Billy stroked the back of his hand against Dom’s stomach.

“I’m still hard,” he said wonderingly.

Billy laughed softly as he wrapped his fingers around Dom’s cock. “You expected something else?”

“I thought it was only the lack of the influence that allowed us to have the baser desires,” Dom said, “now that we have these,” he lifted his wings, upsetting the other bedside lamp with his pinions, “I thought it might go away.”

“And did it?” Billy dragged his loosely fisted hand down that smooth skin, watched Dom shudder.

“No,” Dom whispered, “it didn’t.”

Billy steadied himself with one hand on Dom’s shoulder, fingertips dipping down into the space where the wing joint was. “The influence,” he said, a small smile quirking his lips, “that’s what you call it?”

“Good a name as any,” Dom said, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks.

“I still love you,” Billy said, “and you still love me.”

“Yes,” Dom whispered, more loudly than most voices.

“And I will keep touching you until I can’t anymore.”

A sound escaped Dom’s throat that might have been a sob, might have been a short moan in response to the tightening of Billy’s hand upon his cock.

The light in the room was dim, only the ambient light from the streetlamps outside filtering in with both the room lamps destroyed no hope for more, but they could see each other’s faces perfectly, bodies less distinctly, wings only a shadow behind each of them. Billy moved his hand slowly but firmly along Dom’s length, stroking his shoulders and chest with first the back of his hand, then the palm, trailing fingers across Dom’s nipples, tracing every line and shadow as if he could store the memory in his hands where it wouldn’t be tampered with.

“You’ve been kneeling for a long time,” he said as he stroked his hand down Dom’s thigh, feeling the tension there.

Dom nodded, sank down so he was sitting on the bed. “I don’t think I can lie on my back,” he said.

“Lie on your side,” Billy said, demonstrating, his wings lifted while he adjusted himself, then settling into shadow behind him once more.

Dom did, the sheets cool and smooth against his side. He had no sooner settled in than Billy’s hand was around him again, Billy’s other hand flat against the small of his back as Billy knelt before him.

“Don’t leave me,” Dom said, looking up, searching for and finding Billy’s face which seemed, suddenly, very far away.

“I’ll remember everything about you,” Billy said, closing his eyes as he spoke, unable to give the answer that Dom was searching him for, “I’ll watch you until the very last moment, and I’ll remember you.” Billy held his gaze for a moment, then slid down the bed to take Dom’s cock in his mouth, tonguing it thoroughly, staying even as Dom tried to urge him upwards.

“I need to see you,” Dom gasped.

“I know.” Billy aligned himself with Dom again, one leg over Dom’s hip, grinding Dom’s cock against the groove in his own hip.

They clung to each other, Dom’s hand gripping Billy’s shoulder, Billy’s arm wrapped as far around Dom’s back as he could manage, and their legs tangling together as they ground together, Dom’s voice the merest whisper, words that couldn’t be discerned but were clearly pleading.

When he came he broke his eye contact with Billy, his head thrown back, shaking in Billy’s embrace so that Billy had to hold on or risk losing him.

As much as he had feared being without his sight, Dom needed to close his eyes now, felt his wings coming up to cover him, heard the rustling that told him that Billy was doing the same, sheltering them both as if they could be hidden.

“What do you think is going to happen?” Dom rested his fingers against Billy’s face as he spoke.

“Maybe nothing,” Billy said, his own hand resting against Dom’s.

“Going to be a whole lot of nothing going on if we walk outside with these on.” Dom leaned in even closer, his upper wing sliding over Billy’s, catching in places so they were latticed together.

“Maybe they’ll go away in the night.” Billy’s voice ended with a fall, as if he was trying to swallow the words.

“Between the two of us, I thought I was the childish one,” Dom said fondly. “It won’t be so bad.”

“It never is,” Billy said, “that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“You’re supposed to like it,” Dom said, leaning away for a split second, then coming back to him, adjusting where they had stuck together, “you’re supposed to long for that lack of memory of anything earthly.”

“Well, I don’t,” Billy said, sounding peevish. “I don’t,” he said more softly, “and that’s just the way it is.”

Dom nodded, even though Billy couldn’t see him. “A popular answer for many things, that,” he said.

“It is.”

They were silent again, drinking in the touch and scent and taste of each other as they clung and kissed, resigned now, no longer desperate. They broke apart by a fraction of an inch when they both became aware of a third presence in the room.

“Someone’s here,” Billy said, unnecessarily.

Dom lifted the merest corner of one wing to let in a sliver of dim light. “An angel, right?” he said, amused at their silly hiding. Any angel would be able to hear all that they did say, and all that they didn’t besides.

“Of course.”

Dom snickered. “Lucifer, is that you?”

There was a rustling then that could only be termed impatient. “Very amusing Dominic. You know, for all that you’ve covered your heads, the greater part of each of your arses is showing in complete and glaring white here. A man could be blinded.”

They shared one last kiss before pulling back their wings and separating.

“Good thing there aren’t any men here,” Dom said.

“Quite.” Ian shifted his wings, lifting them up even higher than they already had been. He was wearing a tailored suit in a soft dove grey that set off the feathers in his wings perfectly—an affectation, of course, since as a messenger he had no real need of either clothes or his wings. “But the two of you seem to have slipped awfully close.” He narrowed his eyes. “As usual.”

“We remember,” Billy said, defiantly, and Dom felt a burst of pride at that, at the subtle but sharp lift to his chin. He was quite sure that in the past times, Billy hadn’t so much as uttered a peep during these little meetings.

“It’s inevitable that you would, eventually,” Ian said, sounding tired—another affectation, Dom was sure. “I suppose you remember what happens next.”

“You bring us back to our purest form,” Billy said, sounding dismal, “until we’re thought and spirit only, the barest hint of a body, and no memory.”

“Yes,” Ian began, but Dom interrupted him.

“No!” He leaned towards Billy, caught his face in his hands. “No, they don’t do that anymore.” He grinned maniacally. “I remembered your car.”

Billy smiled. “You did. So I’d been here the whole time, waiting.”

Ian sighed. “Not waiting, as you didn’t know what you were waiting for. But it’s clear that merely separating you won’t do, and we need you too badly to break you down to your components. For all your mucking about, you’ve both been very useful.”

“So let us stay as we are. We can still do as we should while we’re together.” Dom felt something odd in his throat—the feeling of begging, another tacitly human trait.

“Impossible.” Ian stood behind Dom, laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’re merely going to be restored to being proper angels, but even that won’t be enough for long, I fear.”

“Good.” Dom was barely able to spit out the word, barely able to muster the defiance needed to say it.

 

Billy watched as Dom began to glow softly, his body taking on a white sheen that made it hard to look directly at him, his face changing in some subtle way that he couldn’t quantify, but he forced himself to watch.

“I’ll find you,” Billy said, feeling Ian’s disapproving glance like a blow to his forehead, but continuing anyway. “I’m watching.” He searched for the words, Ian’s influence already changing him to something less likely to rebel, less likely to think of anything but duty, but without the touch of Ian’s hand it was a slower process. “I’m watching how we change, so when I find you again, we can put it back together.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 11/12/2005 for a Two Lines challenge. The two lines given were from Tool's Schism-- I know the pieces fit because I've watched them fall away. That was the only part of the song I knew at the time.


End file.
